This research investigated the effects of para-social interaction (PSI) in online and traditional celebrity endorsements. The data was collected by distributing questionnaire sets. And covariance structural equation modeling was used to analyze the model. The findings showed that para-social interaction is the moderator variable in the online celebrity endorsement effect.

The rise of social media has brought the existence of “foodie” and “food bloggers” in the culinary business. The word “foodie” refers to those who highly favor and engage with food and spend a substantial amount of time collecting culinary experiences and visiting famous restaurants, while a food blogger is an individual or a foodie who uses a communication platform to share recipes and passion for food through reviews based on his or her experience. Culinary businesses use food bloggers to help promote their products and encourage consumers to try their products, which are believed to be effective as the viewers or the followers tend to take their recommendations.

The aims of this study are to understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumers’ word-of-mouth and decision behavior, that is: (i) understand the influence of the number of followers of the celebrity and the positive/negative valence of the messages conveyed by them in the intention to buy and their intention to generate eWoM; (ii) analyzing how the behavior of a celebrity (antisocial vs. pro-social) may affect the perception of its credibility, the intention of the consumers to relate to the celebrity in the social networks and the social identification with it; (iii) understand the impact of celebrity messages on brands and products present in social networks. To achieve this goal a quantitative methodology for the development of research was adopted, selecting the application of a survey as the information collection instrument. The sample is selected by convenience sampling method, collecting 241 responses, 122 females and 119 males. Findings show: (i) concerning the intention to purchase, female seem to be more influenced by the opinions and recommendations of celebrities, while male tend to be more likely to generate e-word-of-mouth into their contact network through social media. (ii) Regarding to antisocial versus prosocial type of celebrity, celebrities with a prosocial behavior seems to have a greater influence for both genders in the way they identify with celebrity and their willingness to relate to them. (iii) Female tends to feel higher purchase intention when exposed to an endorsement, where celebrity promotes a brand or product through its Instagram account.

Celebrity endorsement is defined as an agreement between a publicly recognized celebrity and an entity to use the celebrity’s fame to promote a brand or product. Generally, a celebrity is defined as a famous singer, actor, or athlete who frequently appears in public. The celebrity uses his/her public recognition to persuade consumers to purchase a specific product by the endorsement, and the celebrity accepts remunerations from the firm. Celebrity endorsement has been prevalent as an advertising strategy and many advertisers invest enormous amount of money for the celebrity endorsement. Prior research has examined the economic benefits or effectiveness of celebrity endorsement and found that celebrity endorsement attracts attention from consumers and polishes a tarnished brand image, and the celebrity may help advertisements stand out, thus improving their communicative ability. Apart from a general celebrity endorsement advantage, previous studies have found the factors that affect the success or failure of celebrity endorsement. An attractive celebrity can positively influence advertising evaluation, and a celebrity with expertise can increase consumers’ purchase intention through product. In addition, consumers prefer a product endorsed by a highly trustworthy celebrity. Specifically, on the economic worth of celebrity endorsement, most studies have indicated a positive effect. An announcement of a celebrity endorsement contract can bring a positive abnormal benefit to a firm’s stock price. Celebrity endorsement also helps increase the intangible value of a firm, which is the source of competitive edge and sustainable growth. However, despite recent interest in the return on advertising investment, it is not known how and which source factor of the celebrity endorsement can be explained with the firm value. By using text mining and sentiment analysis, the results of this study explain that the sustainable firm value is impacted by various sources of celebrity endorsement. First, the number of words regarding celebrity attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness has an impact on the sustainable firm value. Among the three sources, trustworthiness has the biggest impact on the sustainable firm value, which is Tobin’s Q. Second, regarding attractiveness and expertise, increasing proportion of positive words has impact on the firm value. On the other hand, regarding trustworthiness, the number of negative words on occupational issues is important. Third, different celebrity expertise has different impact on the sustainable firm value depending on the degree of job uniqueness and replaceability. Fourth, once the celebrity has lost his/her trustworthiness, the negative impact is hardly recovered as the negative interaction effect between positive impact of celebrity expertise on the sustainable firm value and the loss of trustworthiness is over seven times higher than the positive effects from the expertise. This implies that if an advertiser carefully manages other effects except for the loss of trustworthiness, he/she cannot offset the failure.

Introduction Showing friendly, kind, and warm endorsers in advertisement is a common strategy for companies attempting to appeal to their customers on an emotional level. However, these companies may have systematically overlooked one important factor, the perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition. According to the perceptual fluency literature (Lee & Labroo 2004; Winkielman et al. 2012), information that is consistent with one’s existing knowledge is more easily to be processed. Unlike previous endorsement research, this study explored novel pathways of celebrity recognition and examined how the perceptual fluency of the celebrity will impact celebrity endorsement. This study aimed to answer two questions: ⦁ Does perceptual fluency of the celebrity affect how a viewer reacts to an advertisement on the metrics that advertisers care about? ⦁ If perceptual fluency of the celebrity does have an effect, how can advertisers enhance the fluency when creating print advertisements? The current study undertook two studies that provided evidence for the perceptual fluency effect of a celebrity’s physical image on consumers’ recall and attitude towards the endorsement. Study 1 Study 1 aimed to test the effect of perceptual fluency in the context of banner ads on website. A pre-test is used to examine the perceptual fluency of various outlines from different celebrities under coarse visual condition, and choose the celebrity’s image with the highest deviation regarding perceptual fluency. The pre-test employed 46 grayscale pictures of 18 Chinese celebrities, with two to four images per celebrity. 29 undergraduate students (16 males) took the pre-test. The task was a forced choice two-alternative identification (celebrity: yes or no). Subjects were instructed to identify whether it is a celebrity or not, by pressing the keys “Y” or “N,” respectively. Jet Lee’s (a famous Chinese material artist in Hollywood) images were selected for the main study based on the pre-test results. Evidences (correct rate: 62.1% vs. 20.7%; response time: 0.96 seconds vs. 1.46 seconds) reveal that the respondents experienced higher perceptual fluency in the famous pose condition than in the casual pose condition. The main study used a professionally designed beer advertisement showing Jet Lee as the celebrity endorser. To enhance the external validity of this study, the stimulus advertisement was placed at the lower-left corner, with other advertisements. To ensure the validity of the target group, a representative online sample of male participants was solicited through a professional online panel provider (Erfgen, Zenker & Sattler, 2015). In total, 168 male Chinese participants completed the online survey. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions (low vs. high perceptual fluency). Erfgen, Zenker and Sattler (2015)’s approach was employed to study advertisement recall. The experimenter informed participants that their mathematical mentality was being tested. They were instructed to read an article about how to teach mathematical mentality to children. However, respondents were not explicitly asked to look at the advertisement. A filtering question was asked about the content of the article, and those who could not answer correctly were excluded from further analyses. Participants then solved four mental math exercises involving basic arithmetic operations, to distract them from the advertisement, before responding to our dependent recall items: unaided recall of the brand, the endorser, and then aided recall of the brand, and endorser (i.e., participants could choose among 10 answer options). Finally, questions about endorser familiarity and some general demographic items were asked. In total, 106 participants answered the filtering question correctly (Mage = 27.9 years, 74.4% with a bachelor’s degree or higher). The endorser familiarity is not significantly different among the two conditions (Mhigh = 5.62 vs. Mlow = 5.78, n.s.). The recall rates confirmed that the use of images with low perceptual fluency impaired endorser recall as compared to the use of images with high perceptual fluency. Unaided endorser name recall was not significantly higher for the high perceptual fluency condition (21.6% correct) as compared to the low perceptual fluency condition (10.9% correct; χ2(1, 106) = 2.23, p = .10, φ = .15). However, for the aided endorser name recall, it was significantly higher in high perceptual fluency condition (29.4% correct) than in low perceptual fluency condition (9.1% correct; χ2(1, 106) = 7.14, p < .01, φ = .26). Brand name recall was not significantly different among the two conditions, both for unaided recall (11.8% vs. 7.3%; n.s.) and aided recall (15.7% vs. 12.7%; n.s.). The results of Study 1 offer evidence for the existence of the perceptual fluency effect by using a realistic advertisement context. Participants exhibited higher recall rates of the endorser’s name for images with high rather than low perceptual fluency, which indicates that even when audiences focus on other tasks, they are more likely to process the advertisement with a high perceptual fluence celebrity image than that with a low perceptual fluence one. Study 2 Study 2 aimed to test the relationship between perceptual fluency of endorser and consumers’ attitude towards the endorsement. Donnie Yen is considered to be one of Hong Kong’s top action stars. His images were also shown as stimuli in pretest in Study 1. The result revealed that the perceptual fluency of Donnie Yen with a friendly gesture (smiling with an inviting gesture; accurate rate =24%, mean response time = 1.46 seconds) was significantly lower than it was for his image with a provoking gesture (showing a fist with cool expression; accurate rate = 40%, mean response time = 1.03 seconds, p’s < .01). The experiment used a professionally designed advertisement of a virtual “LIMA” brand electric bike showing Donnie Yen as the celebrity endorser. Similar to the method used in study 1, high and low perceptual fluency images of Donnie Yen were used. It is well known that the endorsers’ facial expressions and features have significant impact on advertisement outcomes (e.g. Kulczynski, Ilicic & Baxter 2016; Xiao & Ding 2014). Thus, to rule out the alternative explanation of facial expressions and features, the experiment used a 2 (perceptual fluency: low vs. high) * 2 (celebrity face: face only vs. face and body) between group design. This online study included 108 male Chinese consumers from Sojump (a China-based online panel site). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions. They were shown a constructed print advertisement pairing Donnie Yen with an electric bike. Participants were instructed to rate the endorser on trustworthiness, likeness, competence, and attractiveness (Tanner & Maeng 2012), following which they were asked to rate their attitude towards the advertisement (Aab), brand (Ab), and purchase intention (PI). Measurement of Aab was based on Mitchell and Olson’s (1981) 5-point semantic differential scale, which includes “this advertisement is: bad/good, dislike/like, and uninteresting/ interesting” (Cronbach’s α = 0.92). Measurement of Ab was based on Carrillat, d’Astous and Christianis’ (2014) model, which includes “For the brand LIMA: I have a negative opinion about/I have a positive opinion about, I do not like/I like, it is untrustworthy/is trustworthy, and it is inferior to other brands/is superior to other brands” (Cronbach’s α = 0.88). Measurement of PI was drawn from Choi and Rifon (2012) by asking “How likely is it that you would consider the advertised brand next time you purchase an electric bike?”. In addition, they were asked to rate the matchiness of the celebrity image shown in the stimuli: “To which degree is the image in the advertisement consistent with the celebrity’s image in your mind?”. Finally, questions about gender, age, and education were asked. Trustworthiness, likeness, competence, and attractiveness were analyzed by using a one-way ANOVA. Results showed no significant differences among the conditions. Attitude towards the advertisement and brand, and purchase intention were analyzed in a 2 * 2 ANOVA with the perceptual fluency and face conditions as independent variables. Results showed main effects of perceptual fluency for attitude towards the advertisement (F(1,107) = 3.47, p = 0.06), attitude towards the brand (F(1,107) = 3.93, p = 0.05), and purchase intention (F(1,107) = 7.35, p < 0.01), but no significant interaction (F’s < 1). A follow-up analysis revealed that, when the celebrity’s face and gesture was presented, high perceptual fluency lead to a higher endorsement effect (MAad = 5.72, MAb = 5.66, MPI = 5.83) than when there was low perceptual fluency (MAad = 5.18, MAb = 5.08, MPI = 5.06; p’s < .05). However, no significant difference was found if only the celebrity’s face was shown (high perceptual fluency: MAad = 5.29, MAb = 5.37, MPI = 5.52; low perceptual fluency face: MAad = 4.94, MAb = 5.18, MPI = 4.96; p’s > 0.05). To investigate whether feelings of image matching mediated the relationship between the perceptual fluency and positive attitude related to the advertisement, the PROCESS macro bootstrapping procedure (n = 10,000, model 4) was performed (Preacher, Rucker & Hayes 2007). Trustworthiness, likeness, familiarity, and attractiveness were included as covariates. The results indicated that the high perceptual fluency produced significant feelings of image matching (β = 0.32, p=0.055), and image matching was a significant predictor of Aad (β = 0.42, p<0.001), Ab (β = 0.27, p<0.001), and PI (β = 0.42, p<0.001). Further, the 95% bootstrapped confidence interval for the indirect effect of perceptual fluency on the dependent variables through the mediator, image matching, did not include zero (Aad: β= 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02–0.30; Ab: β = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.02–0.19; and PI: β = 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02–0.30). These results support the notion that the perceptual fluency of a celebrity stimulus can affect the endorsement positively. Although the traditional influence factors of endorsement (i.e., trustworthiness, likeness, familiarity, and attractiveness) did not differ among the experimental conditions, participants showed significantly different attitudes towards the endorsement. Specifically, when the stimulus contained a celebrity image with high perceptual fluency, participants had significantly positive attitudes towards the advertisement and brand, and a higher purchase intention, as compared to those when a low perceptual fluency image was presented. In addition, the alternative explanation of facial expressions and features was ruled out in this study. Theoretical contribution This study contributes to the literature concerning how celebrities on printed advertisements are processed. (1) The current study revealed that the high rather than low perceptual fluency of celebrities’ physical image had higher benefits (e.g., martial art actor showing friendly gesture). The study defined this effect as perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition, which advances the stereotypic filtering mechanism (Sherman et al. 1998) and the fluency-as-good effect (e.g., Reber, Winkielman & Schwarz 1998). (2) This study also contributes to psychology through the assertion that our perception of famous faces can be influenced by the accompanied contextual information. Study 1 demonstrated that, other than the faces, the contextual information (e.g., hairstyle, gesture, and etc.) with high perceptual fluency can facilitate the recognition of celebrities. Study 2 revealed that the effect of perceptual fluency is more salient when the celebrity’s image includes the face and gesture. This result echoes findings from Aviezer et al. (2012), who argued that people tend to combine the face and body together, to create a synergistic effect. (3) Humans have evolved with significant mental capabilities to facilitate the rapid processing of information (Downing et al. 2001). However, the possible influence of such automatic evaluations in marketing contexts has not received sufficient attention. While marketers narrowly focus on manipulating attractiveness, agreeableness, or friendliness of celebrity endorsers, this study suggests that manipulating the perceptual fluency of the endorser may have a higher influence on consumers. These initial findings may help facilitate further marketing research using neuro and visual science methods to examine the perceptual processing of celebrities’ imagery. Implications for practice This study highlights the need for marketers to pay more attention to using the perceptual fluency of celebrity endorsers to enhance the endorsement effect. With increasing competition in marketing communications, automatic and holistic processing of the celebrity’s image may influence consumer behaviors in different contexts. Enhancing the perceptual fluency of celebrity images seems to have multiple benefits, including improved recognition, recall, and consumer attitude towards the endorsement. This study also proposes practical methods for the careful selection of celebrity images when constructing print advertisements. Marketers can evaluate the congruence of celebrities’ physical image with coarse visual images of celebrities and conduct pretests to determine the image that suits their printed advertisements. Limitations and Directions for Future Research One major limitation of this study is that only action movie stars were studied in the recall (Study 1) and consumer attitude experiments (Study 2). This is because it is a common practice that endorsers are asked to convey friendly signals in the advertisement, such as smiling, friendly body gesture, etc. Such friendly gestures are more likely to lead to low perceptual fluency for action movie stars than for other celebrities. Further evidence may be required for the perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition. Future studies can examine the perceptual fluency effect for other categories of celebrities, such as athletic stars, fashion stars, etc. Second, the current study focused only on male celebrities and male consumers. However, female celebrities are very popular in printed advertisements, especially for cosmetics, personal care, fashion, etc. (Belch & Belch, 2013). Influence of the perceptual fluency of female celebrities and the possible differences in the impact of each gender’s perceptual fluency requires further research. Third, in conducting Study1, the distraction task of mental math exercises only represented a simplification of reality. Future research can use more realistic tasks to enhance the external validity of the findings.

Celebrity endorsement has been traditionally considered as a strategic promotional tool by marketers. Actually, advertising scholars generally found a positive influence of celebrity endorsement on brand equity and, consequently, on consumer purchase intention. On the one hand, literature interprets celebrity source and endorsement factors as related to celebrity-brand fit, perceived celebrity motive, and celebrity expertise. On the other hand, consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) has been usually referred to brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand awareness, and brand associations. Despite such a growing interest, there is limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms linking celebrity endorsement to CBBE. Building on consumer psychology and brand signaling theories, this study develops a conceptual model which hypothesizes consumer-based brand authenticity (CBBA) and brand credibility as mediating variables of the aforementioned relationship. First, CBBA is interpreted as a multidimensional construct composed of a brand’s quality commitment, sincerity, and heritage. Second, credibility refers to a brand’s ability – e.g. expertise – and willingness – e.g. trustworthiness – to reliably keeping its promises to consumers. Moreover, this study hypothesizes that the influence of CBBA and brand credibility on CBBE vary according to consumers’ advertising evaluation. Hence, communication effectiveness is considered as a moderating variable of these relationships. The conceptual model is empirically tested using bootstrapped moderated mediation analysis on a sample of Millennial consumers. In fact, Millennials very well describe postmodern consumption and communication, which increasingly emphasize the need of “real” and authentic communication by credible endorsers and endorsed brands. By stressing the significant role of brand authenticity and credibility in the context of celebrity endorsement, this study provides both theoretical and practical implications to marketing communication literature.

“Cobranded endorsement”, i.e. the interactive partnership between a brand and a celebrity, seems to be the last frontier for endorsing a brand and increasing brand popularity. Indeed, the collaborations between a celebrity and a brand are increasing in number and growing in importance. Many new products or capsule collections are created and launched after these partnerships. The paper wants to investigate whether this cobranded endorsement has positive effects on brand equity. Findings from an experimental study carried out in the fashion segment reveal that cobranded endorsements foster a better attitude towards the brand and a higher purchase intention.

Not all celebrity endorsements have been successful on social media. However, our understanding of the effectiveness of luxury brand celebrity endorsement advertising are limited. On the basis of Self-Congruity Theory (Sirgy, 1985), Meaning-Transfer Model (McCracken, 1989), and Match-Up Hypothesis (Kamins, 1990; Kamins & Cupta, 1994), this study investigates whether three components of image congruity (i.e., brand-celebrity, brand-self, celebrity-self) would influence brand attitudes, ad attitudes, and self-brand connection, and subsequently, influence consumer engagement and purchase intentions. This study also tests the moderating role of consumer type (followers vs. unfollowers of the social media brand page) in these relationships. After conducting a series of pretests to select a focal brand and celebrities, responses from 219 US female adults were used to data analysis. The results of structural equation modeling showed that brand-celebrity congruity was positively related to ad attitudes and brand attitudes. Brand-self congruity was positively related to ad attitudes, brand attitudes, and self-brand connection. Self-celebrity congruity was positively related to ad attitudes and self-brand connection but was negatively related to brand attitudes. Ad attitudes were positively related to brand attitudes and engagement intentions but were not related to purchase intentions. Brand attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions and purchase intentions. Self-brand connection was positively related to engagement intentions, and engagement intentions were positively related to purchase intentions. Finally, the results of a multi-group analysis showed that for unfollowers (n=125), ad attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions but brand attitudes were not. On the contrary, for followers (n=94), brand attitudes were positively related to engagement intentions but ad attitudes were not. This study highlights that self-brand connection is the key to cultivating consumer engagement on social media, along with the consumer’s positive attitudes toward the celebrity endorsement ad and the brand per se. If luxury brands wish to interact with their followers and increase their engagement, they need to focus their efforts on improving brand attitudes and self-brand connection through their brand pages. Our findings suggest that celebrity endorsed advertising contributes to creating self-brand relationships (Dwivedi et al., 2016) but it should be considered as a long-term investment.

Introduction The over population of wild and feral animals is increasing as an environmental problem in many parts of the world due the pressure on native flora and ecosystems. (BBC, 2013; Hall, 2015; Kaji, Saitoh, Uno, Matsuda, & Yamamura, 2010). Examples include deer in Northern Japan and Northeast USA, the urban fox in England, possums in New Zealand and the crown of thorns starfish in the Great Barrier Reef. This phenomenon is also happening in Australia. Recent news reports of huge kangaroo populations devastating grazing land in western Queensland (Arthur, 2015) and a spike in Koalas eating away their habitat in the Cape Otway area of Victoria (Paul, 2015) have highlighted this problem. While the overpopulation of koalas is causing environmental damage to natural gum trees, to the point that they will not regenerate, it is difficult to enforce population control because these animals hold such as positive place as an Australian symbolic animal. Hence, there is some controversy whether they should be culled by environment advocates as part of an ongoing population/environmental management program. To help facilitate appropriate wildlife management in light of the controversial environmental problems, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) play an essential role as a conduit between government and local citizens. For example, Australian Koala Foundation contributes to the conservation and management of the wild Koala through conducting strategic research for Koala management, conservation and community education in Australia (Australian Koala Foundation, 2015). However, NGOs are currently faced with challenges, such as acquisition of funds to support such work and gathering supporters for volunteer activities. This is because the competitiveness in the not-for-profit-sector has intensified due to an increase in the number of NGOs and oligopoly of donation share by high-profile NGOs (Foster & Fine, 2007; Sunder, 2015). To deal with these challenges NGO’s are resorting to more commercial types of marketing communications such as the use of celebrity endorsement or using celebrities as spokespeople. Although using celebrities as spokespeople for the NGO sector has become a common advertising strategy (De los Salmones, Dominguez, & Herrero, 2013; Wheeler, 2009), research into what kind of characteristics of spokesperson would lead effectively to change customer's attitude and behavioural intentions is limited. This celebrity/cause match is especially important for many environmental NGOs who have to deal with controversial environmental problems (e.g. wildlife management for overpopulated animals). This research examines the differences between the relevant expertise and perceived attractiveness of the celebrity spokesperson and its effect on the public’s perception of trustworthiness of the NGO. As the role of the celebrity spokesperson to encourage the public’s intentions to donate increases another issue arises: can the same strategy be used to solicit the donation of time (by volunteers)? This latter dilemma is something that is rarely experienced in the for-profit or commercial sector. This study presents a conceptual model that may help to identify answers to these questions and will extend the current research on celebrity endorsement. It should also bring out new academic insights about the process of building source credibility and a detailed evaluation of the spokesperson’s role in creating a two dimensional approach to behavioural intentions. Literature review Celebrity endorsement is a common advertising technique used by many organisations to build an association between a well-known and well-liked personality and the company’s brand in order to increase consumer’s awareness and liking for the brand (Spry, Pappu, & Bettina Cornwell, 2011). By utilizing the endorsement of a celebrity spokesperson, the product/service, band and/or company is able to leverage the positive attributes and characteristics of the spokesperson to the advantage of that product, band and/or company image (Erdogan, 1999; Ohanian, 1990). Recently, this strategy of utilizing celebrities as credible spokespeople has been adopted by many socially purposed organisations and NGOs (De los Salmones, et al., 2013; Samman, Auliffe, & MacLachlan, 2009; Wheeler, 2009). In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the spokesperson, source credibility is used as a key measure. The source credibility is defined as ‘a communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message’ (Ohanian, 1990, p. 41). The concept of source credibility has been established through the development of two important models: source credibility model and source attractiveness model. The source credibility model, proposed by Hovland, Janis, and Kelley (1953), suggests that the effectiveness of a message depends on perceived level of expertise and trustworthiness in an endorser (Erdogan, 1999). Hovland, et al. (1953) analyze the factors which lead to the perceived credibility of the spokesperson and defined that two essential items of source credibility namely, expertise and trustworthiness. Moreover, the source attractiveness model, takes a social psychological perspective (McGuire, 1985) and is defined as another important factor that is likely to affect customers’ perception of the brand. The source attractiveness model explains that the effectiveness of a message depends on source's 'familiarity', 'likability', 'similarity', and 'attractiveness' to the respondent (Erdogan, 1999). This model brings about the idea that attractiveness is also a factor determining source credibility. Ohanian (1990) combines these two models and defines the construct of endorser source credibility as consisting of three sub-dimension items (i.e. expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness). By adopting the source credibility model, researchers have studied the effects of spokesperson on customer's attitudes and behavioural intentions in various research settings and conditions (Amos, Holmes, & Strutton, 2008; Erdogan, 1999; Lafferty & Goldsmith, 1999; Ohanian, 1991). However, a comprehensive review of the literature reveals that some gaps still exist in the work that has been undertaken in this field. Firstly, rather than source credibility consisting of three independent variables (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness) Busch and Wilson (1976) and Johnson and Grayson (2005) suggest that for trust building within service marketing and sales research, the constructs of expertise and attractiveness are regarded as antecedent factors of trustworthiness. This approach has not been used in research into celebrity endorsement. Secondly, although most studies have dealt with concept of behavioural intentions as a unidimensional concept, this unidimensional way could make the actual effects of spokesperson unclear because different behavioural intentions may hold different meanings, for different potential sponsors resulting in different forms of donation. In service quality research Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1996) confirm that different types of service quality may influence differently any one of five different behavioural intentions (i.e. loyalty, switch, pay more, external response, and internal response). Thus, different types of celebrity endorser (expert or attractive) could also influence different types of behavioural intentions. For example the attributes of celebrity endorser may have an influence on whether someone would be more inclined to donate money, to donate time (volunteer for the organisation), and/or spread positive word of mouth. Conceptual framework & hypotheses development Although this study investigates the effects of the various combinations of endorser's characteristics on customer’s attitudes and behavioural intentions, research shows that different endorser’s characteristics do affect different customer attitudes and behaviour (Eisend & Langner, 2010; Lord & Putrevu, 2009). Lord and Putrevu (2009) find that attractiveness drives customer's behavioural intentions when customer's motivation is transformational (i.e. affective), whereas expertise and trustworthiness are influential when their motivation is informational (i.e. cognitive). Eisend and Langner (2010) reveal that attractiveness is a determinant of positive customer attitudes in the immediate condition (i.e. ad effects after just 60 seconds), whereas expertise is effective in the delayed condition (i.e. ad effects after one or three days). They also found that a high-expertise and high-attractiveness endorser is particularly effective towards customer attitudes in both conditions. Thus, considering the different effects on customer’s attitudes by different endorser’s characteristics our research objective is to examine which type of spokesperson is more effective in influencing a customer's attitudes and behavioural intentions for NGOs dealing with controversial environmental problems. In addition to solving the research objective, the research will also fill the research gaps indicated through the literature review. Our model (See Figure 1) shows that both the expertise and attractiveness of a celebrity spokesperson will lead to consumers’ perception of the trustworthiness of that spokesperson. Considering the insights from the perspective of trust building processes in the services marketing and sales literature, the celebrity’s expertise and/or attractiveness as antecedent factors of trustworthiness should also have an effect on organisation credibility through trustworthiness as a mediator. Moreover, we propose that the effects of a spokesperson’s expertise and/or attractiveness will influence differently the organisational credibility depending on the level of issue controversy they deal with. For example, Wheeler (2009) found that a celebrity endorser that showed a logical connection with the organisation increased organisational credibility and behavioural intentions. Therefore it is expected that for an environmental NGO that has to deal with controversial issues (such as reducing numbers of animals in habitats under stress from overgrazing) an expert spokesperson may well be a better fit and gain more trust and therefore more credibility for the organisation than an attractive one. However, where the issue the spokesperson is dealing with is not controversial this pattern may well reverse with an attractive celebrity being the more effective spokesperson. From this point of view, the level of issue controversy that the NGO deals with is hypothesized as a moderator between both expertise and attractiveness and trustworthiness. The customer’s perception of both the trustworthiness/credibility of the celebrity chosen as spokesperson and the credibility of the organisation will influence their (the customer’s) attitudes toward the organisation. In the model we follow Amos, et al. (2008) and Erdogan (1999) in asserting that positive organisational credibility will positively influence attitudes toward the firm. From the view that a unidimensional behavioural intention could make actual outcomes unclear, three behavioural intentions (i.e. donation of time, donation of money, word of mouth) options are proposed. This distinction is especially important when considering that many NGOs unlike for-profit organisations have a need to both increase financial resources and human resources. The NGO/celebrity endorser conceptual model is presented in figure 1. Conclusion & future research direction The conceptual model developed in this study research has implications for both academics and managers. Firstly, as an academic contribution, the idea that expertise and attractiveness contributes to trustworthiness, which is reported in trust building in service marketing, should raise new considerations about source credibility building process in celebrity endorsement research. Moreover, the moderating influence of the degree of controversy will play an important part in that relationship, especially for NGOs having to deal with controversial issues such as culling wildlife to protect the environment. The approach that multiple types of behavioural intentions are important outcomes may also enable a more detailed evaluation of the effects of celebrity spokespeople. The interactions between spokesperson characteristics (e.g. expertise, attractiveness) and the three behavioural intentions should be further investigated within the celebrity endorser field of research. Secondly, since the literature which evaluates the effect of celebrity endorsement for NGOs in the context of controversial social issues has been still under-researched, the outcomes of this research will be valuable for most NGO managers struggling with same issues. Moreover, by applying multiple behavioural intentions, more detailed insights how to increase each behavioural intention (i.e. donation of money, donation of time, positive word of mouth) through assigning different spokesperson with different characteristics (i.e. attractiveness and expertise) may enable NGOs to more flexible in assigning a suitable spokesperson. The characteristics of the spokesperson may need to change depending on the resource acquisition requirements the NGO has at that time. Hence, this research will provide meaningful insights from the both academic and managerial perspectives. As a future research direction, in order to validate this conceptual model it is suggested that a between subjects experiment be conducted. The experiment could consist of a scenario whereby a spokesperson is trying to gain public support for the activities of an environmental NGO. Here one could manipulate the expertise (high vs low) and the attractiveness (high vs low) of the spokesperson and the message (controversial vs non-controversial) to establish if differences in the spokesperson characteristics would have an effect on the different behavioural intentions of the respondents.

Extant research has expansively studied the effect of celebrity endorsements on consumer choice and behavior (Amos, Holmes, and Strutton, 2008) and found celebrities to positively influence the endorsed brands. According to prior literature, three fundamental ties between endorser, consumer and product influence the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement, namely the endorser-product match-up, the consumer’s identification with the endorser and the consumer’s product category involvement. So far, these have been investigated predominantly in a positive endorser information context (Erdogan, 1999). However, the effect that negative information about the endorser hitting the spotlight has on the brand’s future and the role that these ties play in this context remain widely unknown. This research fills the gap by exploring the effect of negative information about an endorser on consumers’ attitude towards the ad, brand attitude, behavioral intentions and word of mouth. By further integrating the meaning transfer model, social influence theory, the match-up hypothesis and product-category involvement, this research offers deeper insights into the three essential ties between endorser, consumer and product. In an extensive main experiment, with two brands - Nike and Adidas - and 7 celebrity endorser the author finds that a strong fit between celebrity and product, high product-category involvement and high identification of consumer with the celebrity offer beneficial effects for consumer perceptions and intentions. However, when an endorser scandal becomes public, negated meanings get transferred to the brand, leading to less favorable attitudes towards the ad, brand attitudes, behavioral intentions and willingness to recommend the brand. This phenomenon is stronger in case of attitude towards the ad for high product involvement and low identification with the celebrity. Furthermore, a low identification with the celebrity also moderates a higher decrease in willingness to recommend the product in case of celebrity negative information. Thus, marketing managers should keep an eye especially on highly involved and low identified consumers in case of endorser scandals, as this immoral behavior can damage the endorsed brand image and hurt earlier ad expenditures.